This joint report by IANSA and IPIS documents recent failures in some countries across world regions to properly dispose of and destroy excess small arms and light weapons (SALW), and their ammunition. It illustrates the different ways that excessive, poorly secured, weapons, especially firearms and ammunition, leak out into the hands of abusers and to those unauthorised to trade and use them, and the dire consequences that result from such failures.

Many governments around the world have been working diligently to secure their stockpiles of weapons and to dispose of surpluses. Though progress has been made over the past two decades, there are still many failures worldwide, as the examples show in this report.

The authors have chosen a range of examples from countries experiencing armed conflict and from countries suffering various levels of armed crime. The illustrative cases include Afghanistan, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the European Union, El Salvador, Libya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Southern Africa (Malawi and South Africa).